The "Good old days".....really?

[bear7625]

I just wanted to take some of the older fishermen, like myself, back in time. Hopefully, some of the younger guys will enjoy.

When I see the choices we have in rods, reels, baits, and line,(and let's not leave out boats and electronics) it's almost over-whelming. It makes me go back in time when...

We fished out of a plywood boat and the trolling motors were called "oars".

The handles on baitcasters kept turning when you cast, and your thumb was the drag.

Monofilament line revolutionized fishing even though it had more memory then your lap-top and 10lb test was like weedwacker cord.

Anchor lowered over the side was your depth finder and the lake you fished had a secret "deep hole" according to an old guy that lived on the lake.

I'm sure some of you guys can add more to this, but it leads me to ask the question......

HOW THE HELL DID WE EVER CATCH FISH!!!

[Raul]

Well I ain 't THAT old, back then when I began fishing:

We did have electric trolling motors.

We did have fishfinders, flashers that is.

10 lb test nylon was no longer weedeater cord thick and braided was Dacron which BTW was for saltwater fishing.

Bcs were only available righty, spinning reels were only available left.

Oh boy, graphite rods appeared in the market ! only problem was they sure were brittle.

Color schemes on lures were quite simplistic.

Hooks had to be sharpened with a file and .... then they rusted.

But I did manage to catch me some fish.

[RoLo]

What I miss the most about the good ole days is the solitude.

In years gone by, I had many lakes to myself, which felt like my own private waters.

Today we are commonly circled by jet skis and other splashabouts,

and find ourselves in 20-min launch lines that were non-existent in the good ole days.

Roger

[WanderLust]

LOL @ Monofilament line revolutionized fishing even though it had more memory then your lap-top... 

When I fished with my dad last year I let him use a really light setup... He was blown away at how light and strong things were.

[flipin4bass]

I still have the one-piece cane pole I used as a boy. It's dry and brittle, about 60 years old and I only keep it for sentimental reasons.  Couldn't cast it, but it has landed a lot of fish. I also had a metal band aid box to carry a few weights, extra line, and hooks. Take along a couple of fried egg sandwiches and you were ready for a day at the lake.

[RoLo]

I still have the one-piece cane pole I used as a boy. It's dry and brittle, about 60 years old and I only keep it for sentimental reasons. Couldn't cast it, but it has landed a lot of fish. I also had a metal band aid box to carry a few weights, extra line, and hooks. Take along a couple of fried egg sandwiches and you were ready for a day at the lake.

That jogs my memory:

Back in the 50s and 60s, the 'chain pickerel' was actually voted the most popular

freshwater game fish in New Jersey. A common method of pickerel fishing

used a canepole and a weedless spoon dressed with a strip of rind.

The method was known as "skittering", where the canepole was used

to skip the spoon across the tops of lily pads

                                                                               

Roger

[Fishing Rhino]

I harken back to the cane pole era myself.  Kite string was the line of choice.  A cork, sliced halfway through lengthwise was the bobber, and worms we had dug on the way to the pond were the bait we used.

I remember catching a monster (16") pickerel, but not with the pole.  While we didn't have a live well, we improvised.  We used a stringer, made of what else, kite string.  A four or five inch twig was the other component.  Tie the string around the middle of the twig, and you were good to go.  Push the twig into the fish's mouth, through the gills, and out.  The twig would turn sideways and thus the fish could not escape.  We liked a long stringer, to allow our catch some freedom to move about.

On the day of the monster catch, the first fish to go on the stringer was a shiner about five or six inches long.  The fishing was slow, and we caught nothing for the next couple of hours.

We were in the process of retrieving the shiner to release it when we realized it was putting up a heck of a fight.  To our amazement, that 16 inch pickerel was on the end of the line.  It had caught, and swallowed the shiner.

As we were walking home with the pickerel dangling from the string, the shiner must have turned in its gut, and slid out of the pickerel's mouth.

We took our prize home, filled a wheelbarrow with water and put the pickerel in the makeshift aquarium to show our parents.

The next morning, we found it had survived the night so we returned it to the pond, alive and well.

[bear7625]

My grampa had a 14' cane pole with guides and an old casting reel that were all held on with black tape. He could cast that thing a mile. ;D

[flippin and pitchin]

My first real bass boat was a 1973 Terry Basser. It was 14 feet long with a 50 HP Evenrude. I was jazzed because it had a bow mount hand controlled battery operated trolling motor and zoomed around the lake with 17 pounds of thrust. That boat has been the first boat for about 6 or 7 others and currently sits in a field and is covered with blackberry vines. I fished my first club event with a single black Bomber Bushwacker spinnerbait. That's all I had. I still have three fiberglass Lews Speedsticks, the hot rods of the day. It's no different than motocross. In " the day" having a Maico, CZ or Husky made you a god and if you had leathers, good heaven. Look at it now. It's all fun, just a different kind of fun.

[MNGeorge]

What I miss the most about the good ole days is the solitude.

In years gone by, I had many lakes to myself, which felt like my own private waters.

Today we are commonly circled by jet skis and other splashabouts,

and find ourselves in 20-min launch lines that were non-existent in the good ole days.

Roger

Amen, I hear you brother.  When I first started fishing the upper Mississippi, it was rare to see more than another boat or two on a Saturday or Sunday.  During the week, I was virtually assured of having the river to myself.  Fast forward 30 years...even during the week there is considerable boat traffic and the weekends are just ridiculous. :'(

[Blue Streak]

I didn't really mind all of the inconveniences of those old days, until the trolling motors came along. After that I never wanted to touch an oar again.  On windy days more time was spent with oars in hand than with a rod and reel.

[bear7625]

When the open faced spinning reels became popular, they had bail springs that would always break at the worst time. I will never forget changing one on the lake when the fish were really on the bite. >

[Catt]

Any of y'all remember how scull with a 2' paddle?

It was my job to scull the boat while my dad cast to all the prime spots & occasionally I was allowed to cast to a couple.

Our boat was a 12' Sears car-topper with a 7 ½ hp Johnson Seahorse, for reverse you simply turn the engine backwards.

My first reel was a Penn 9M with a blazing 3.4:1 gear ratio, line was braided cotton & then braided Dacron.

[brophog]

What I miss the most about the good ole days is the solitude.

In years gone by, I had many lakes to myself, which felt like my own private waters.

Today we are commonly circled by jet skis and other splashabouts,

and find ourselves in 20-min launch lines that were non-existent in the good ole days.

Roger

Agreed, and the people that were on the water were more tolerant of each other.

[bear7625]

Any of y'all remember how scull with a 2' paddle?

It was my job to scull the boat while my dad cast to all the prime spots & occasionally I was allowed to cast to a couple.

Our boat was a 12' Sears car-topper with a 7 ½ hp Johnson Seahorse, for reverse you simply turn the engine backwards.

My first reel was a Penn 9M with a blazing 3.4:1 gear ratio, line was braided cotton & then braided Dacron.

HaHa! Ya had to know how to scull, if you made noise with the oars you were in trouble..

I had a South Bend reel that had "level wind". I thought I was really special.

[senile1]

What I miss the most about the good ole days is the solitude.

In years gone by, I had many lakes to myself, which felt like my own private waters.

Today we are commonly circled by jet skis and other splashabouts,

and find ourselves in 20-min launch lines that were non-existent in the good ole days.

Roger

I'm "only" 50 and not as ancient as you are, Roger, but I remember days like this as well.  I miss those once secluded spots. 

Also, where I grew up in Southeast Missouri the area was swampland in the early decades of the 1900s.  This swampland had been cleared and ditches cut through the land to drain it for farming purposes.  All of the ditches lead to the Mississippi river.  In my youth many of these ditches were full of fish including bass.  As time has passed and chemicals from farming have washed into these ditches many of these fisheries have all but died.   

[WRB]

Started bass fishing in the late 40's and still going.

If you want to relive the bass fishing prior to tournaments read; Black Bass Fishing; Theory and Practice by Robert Page Lincoln and Lucas on Bass by Jason Lucas.

Lincoln and Lucas were the fishing editors of Sports Afield and Outdoor Life, their books are a snap shot of the late 40's to early 60's, a time before modern bass fishing boats and equipment.

The thought that IF we only knew then what we know now or had the tackle then that we have now...we would have ________.

I wouldn't change a anything; enjoy what you have and cherish your memories.

Time waits for no man is as true today as it was back then.

Tom

[Dwight Hottle]

When I first started fishing for bass it was with a cane pole, bobber & red worms around any lily pads we could find. My first lure was a Fred Arbogast hula popper. I can remember how cool it was when my first top water bite happened. I was definitely hooked!

[Mattlures]

I am not as old as you old timers but I aint young either  I remember when "plastics" ONLY meant a texas rigged plastic worm.  Swimbaits were ONLY soft bodied salt water baits that were rigged on lead heads. Diawa was low end, and my worm hooks were blue. I thought I was something special with my pheonix BORON rod and how the heck did we ever fish with those pistal grip bait cast rods. They feel so akward now. I do wish I knew now what I didnt know then. We had monster bass in all our lakes and they would corner the trout and huge shiners and I would watch in amazement with my ultra light and a 3in rapala. Man it was right in fron of me! of course I was only about 8 but I sure did miss what would have been the best fishing ever for me.

[Taylor Fishin 4 life]

Im pretty young but I heard this old man talking about the days of cutting strips of red rubber from tires and using them as soft plastics

[Goose52]

I periodically repeat the "good old days" since I still have my rods, reels, and baits from about the 1959 to 1967 period and fish them all for nostalgia a couple times a year.

The baits that I have from back then will catch fish today - jitterbugs, hula-poppers, rapala/rebel minnows, shyster spinners, etc.

With an exception, the rods I still have from that era are just flat obsolete and I do not enjoy using them at all. The exception is my Shakespeare "Wonderod" fly rod. I will be using that this year but if I start catching fish - I'll probably finally upgrade that to a modern fly rod.

My reels from back then still work, can cast and reel in fish - I wouldn't want to use them every day...but they would catch about as many fish as my more modern reels would (more modern meaning 1980s and newer). My Mitchell 408 spinning reel is an exception - I still LIKE to fish that reel...even though it has the clicking ratchet/pawl anti-reverse system. The only thing that bugs me about it is that you don't have selective bail close - you must crank to close the bail.

Were they the good old days - sure...but not as good as today in many ways!

[clipper]

I still have a couple of my old Mitchell 300 spinning reels and a Pflueger Supreme casting reel that we used in the fifties and sixties. I remember with fondness the vacations where we stayed in the cabins at Ormond's Jungle Den on the St. Johns River. I was sickly so my dad would put me in the front of the boat under a raincoat to keep the wind off me and we would run to the jetties in Lake George or down to Lake Dexter. We fished 8"-10" shiners under a hyacynth cork next to hyacynth mats. You had to let the fish run until he stopped, and then when he started off again you set the hook hard. I caught my first 8lb bass like that. We had to dry our braided line when we got home to keep it from rotting. If you wanted to troll, someone had to man the oars, quitely. I also enjoyed catching the schooling bass on Dalton Specials with a Marm fly trailer or on a Woble-rite spoon.

In the mid-sixties, my dad met the guys who invented Fliptail lures and we went to plastics and spinning gear. Our favorite rig was a Big Daddy Flip Tail (8" long) on a split shot rig, weedless hook, and mono line.

I remember spending an entire week at Lake Lanier without having a single boat come into our bay from Monday morning to Friday at noon.

The thrill of fighting a fish back then was no different than it is now. That's what it has always been about ... that, and fishing with a good fishing buddy.

[bear7625]

Wow! Every post brings back more memories. My 1st spinning reel was a Mitchell 300. The Ambassadeur 5000 came out in 1955, but I had to wait 10 years before I got one. They sold for $45 back then. The best thing about the "good old days", are the memories!

[Goose52]

Speaking of stories and gear from the good old days...

Earlier this evening I found, scanned, and emailed to my 88 year-old Dad a photo he took of me in 1967 when I was 15 years old. I had been fishing with him on a canal off the Tamiami Trail in south Florida, trolling Rebel minnowbaits behind his boat and caught what was then the biggest bass of my life - 4 3/4lbs (see photo - and my painfully swollen fingers - haha). He's already emailed back that he remembers that day well and that earlier that day I had fallen out of the boat (true but that's another story ). OTOH, my Dad doesn't remember what he ate for dinner yesterday but he sure remembers fishin' trips! Bless his heart...

Since many people on this board are tackle junkies, I'm sure that you will be interested in the gear I used for that catch. The reel was a "Lido" (what the heck is a Lido!) spincast reel I got for one book of SSS trading stamps (if you don't know what trading stamps are - you're too young for this thread!). For a rod, I had found a 5.5' casting rod laying on the bank on the Trail that had a broken plastic handle. I cut off the plastic handle, bought a metal ferrule for a couple bits, and then bought a new chucked handle for a buck or two - the rod probably ended up being about 5'4". So, the whole combo cost me a book of trading stamps (about $3.00 merchandise value) and about $2.50 cash. I always think of this rig when I hear people today tout the effectiveness of their new, expensive rods and reels by saying "it handled that 5 pounder with no problems".....LOL. I have the Lido mounted now on a cheap BPS rod for use by my wife. She doesn't use it so I think I gotta fish it this year for her! See other photo below.

Good memories indeed!

[bear7625]

Goose52, That is just awesome!